ANGRY PLANET

This booklet celebrates the world premiere of the Angry

Planet performed in the Albert Hall during the 2012 Proms.

Angry Planet was commissioned by David Hill, conductor of

the BBC Singers and musical director of the Bach Choir,

who approached Bob Chilcott, described by the Observer

as „a contemporary hero of British Choral Music‟, who in

turn approached the award winning poet Charles Bennett

to write the libretto.

Angry Planet was turned into book form for the Hawthorn

Press and Diane Griffiths produced the series of engravings

to illustrate it.

BOB CHILCOTT

Described by the Observer as “a contemporary hero of British

Choral Music”, Bob Chilcott works tirelessly as a composer and

choral conductor. He has over 125 pieces published by Oxford

University Press, two acclaimed recordings on Signum, Making

Waves (The Sirens) and Man I Sing (BBC Singers), and he wrote

the title tracks for the King‟s Singers‟ albums, Swimming over

London and High Flight. His Irish Blessing featured on the multi-

platinum debut album of The Priests in 2008. In March 2012 his

Requiem was released on Hyperion, performed by Wells

Cathedral Choir and the Nash Ensemble, conducted by

Matthew Owens, and in November two complete discs of his

music will appear, one by the BBC Choir of the Year, the

Wellensian Consort, and the other, on Signum, on which he

conducts the Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir.

In 2002 he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the

BBC‟s acclaimed professional choir, the BBC Singers, and he has

conducted other distinguished choirs including RIAS

Kammerchor, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Jauna Musika, The

World Youth Choir, Tower New Zealand Youth Choir, Taipei

Chamber Singers, Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir, and the Kyoto

Echo Choir. Since 1997 he has conducted in 23 countries, and in

2012 he has invitations to conduct in Poland, Denmark, Spain,

Germany, China, Japan, USA, and Canada.

Chilcott maintains a busy schedule of commissions. Amongst

shorter carols and anthems, 2013 will see the completion of an

hour-long setting of the St John Passion for Wells Cathedral for

SATB choir, soloists, and instruments, and Five Days that Changed

the World, a 20-minute work setting words by Charles Bennett for

youth choirs, piano and tympani, which will be premiered in

Worcester Cathedral as part of the Worcester International

Festival for Young Singers in July 2013.

CHARLES BENNETT

Charles Bennett is a celebrated, award-winning poet whose

work has been published to wide acclaim in the UK, Europe and

America. He was born in the North West of England and was a

mature student in the 1980s at London University and the

University of Massachusetts, where he was mentored by Nobel

Laureate Joseph Brodsky. Following the completion of a

doctorate on the structure of meaning in Seamus Heaney‟s

sequences, he taught English and Drama for several years before

becoming the first Director of Ledbury Poetry Festival, which he

established and ran for a number of highly-successful years

before pursuing an academic career. He is currently Reader in

Poetry at the University of Northampton where he leads the BA in

Creative Writing. In addition to continuing his collaboration with

Bob Chilcott, he is currently working on a non-fiction book set in

North Norfolk.

Charles has published eight books of poetry to date. His

engaging second full-length collection, How to Make a Woman

Out of Water, appeared with Enitharmon in 2007. His poems

have been reviewed by Frieda Hughes in The Times and have

featured in over 150 poetry magazines including the Times

Literary Supplement. His most recent book “Evenlode”, has been

published by Overstep Books. The Poetry Book Society have said

that Charles‟ poetry is „brimming over with startling voices,

arresting images and an indefatigable joie de vivre.‟

THE BACH CHOIR

The Prom was the climax of the first two years of the Bach

Choir‟s Outreach project, a climax almost unimaginable in

2010 when a few volunteers from the Choir made their

tentative approaches to schools in the relatively deprived

parts of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.

It was a huge undertaking. The Bach Choir has more than

200 members. The National Youth Choir has some 180. The

BBC Singers, the professional group also conducted by

David Hill, are 30 and it was hoped that about 200 children

from the schools involved in the Outreach programme

would take part.

In the end there were well over 500 voices, including

children from the London borough of Harrow who are part

of the BBC Singer‟s Outreach project.

There was also a signing choir from Great Baddow High

School and an interpreter, Dr Paul Whittaker, founder of the

Huddersfield charity Music and the Deaf. This is believed to

be the first appearance of a signing choir at the Proms.

This project was run in collaboration with the Voices

Foundation, which aims to share the joy of choral singing

with children who may not have grown up with it, as most

Bach Choir members have done, and also to spread

awareness of the choir more widely. The Voices foundation

has supported training for the classroom teachers, and

choir members have gone into the schools alongside the

music staff to lead workshops, sing and play

accompaniments. Children have had the opportunity to

attend Bach Choir rehearsals. The results have gone far

beyond David Hill‟s original expectations, with benefits not

just to the children but for the adult singers who have

encountered unfamiliar repertoire and found themselves

thinking in a completely new way about the process of

musical learning and performance. In the words of one

Bach Choir Soprano, “It‟s been thrilling.”

Videos about the Bach Choir‟s outreach work and the

development of the Angry Planet can be found on the

choir‟s website

www.thebachchoir.or.uk

During the rehearsal period

all those involved were

enriched and excited by the

interchange of experience

and ideas.

2012 Prom at the Royal Albert Hall

The Bach Choir

“I felt really happy when everyone was

clapping at the end. I enjoyed it because it

brought happiness to the crowd.”

The words of one of the children who sang in the Angry Planet

Prom.

The Guardian review spoke of “Bob Chilcott‟s finely crafted

choral writing” and others were impressed by the scale

and complexity of the project, but perhaps more

important were the reactions of members of the Bach

Choir, the children themselves, their teachers and parents,

and others in the audience:

“What a triumph for the Bach Choir! The huge amount of

work undertaken by the Outreach Team and the

incredible logistics involved in bringing such numbers to the

platform were breath-taking. The children all, clearly,

thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We met lots of parents in

the auditorium who were bursting with pride. Big smiles all

around.” A member of the audience.

“Magic ending when all the children signed THE WORLD.”

“I thought it was a truly wonderful concert. The power of

the voices of children and professionals as well as the

beautiful signing combined with the wonderful music and

words made it a fantastic event.”

Members of the Bach Choir.

“The children realised how they were an important integral

part of the work, performing alongside „experts‟. They

consequently felt very proud of their part in it.”

A teacher.

“It was really exciting. She‟s been dreaming about this for

weeks.” A parent.

“A once in a lifetime experience. Not everyone can say

they have sung in the Royal Albert Hall.” A child.

DIANE GRIFFITHS

As with so many artists working in all disciplines I find it both

challenging and refreshing to work with artists in other

fields. These comings-together can often extend one‟s own

practice as well as resulting in dynamic and exciting work,

especially when one is taken out of one‟s own comfort

zone.

I have had previous experience of collaborations both

when working as an Artist in Residence with Poetry- next-

the- Sea and being involved on a project with the Britten

Sinfonia. I am particularly drawn to the work of the poet

Charles Bennett. In my work as a maker of Artist Books I had

already worked with Charles, producing a concertina

version of his poem series “365 Apples”.

And a small-fold out hand painted book of “A Year

Underwater”.

ANGRY PLANET – the Text

Charles Bennett developed the text for Angry Planet in

three thematic units which guide the levels of meaning in

the piece as a whole. Here follows an excerpt from his

commentary in the Hawthorn Press Book:

The first thematic sequence, which was my original

concept for the piece, consists of poems timed for particular

hours. Very early on I knew I wanted to provide a bridging

structure of five pieces with a keystone in the middle and a

balance at either end. I also wanted to work through towards a

moment of potential uplift, and so I began with the notion of

night-hours, and my own working title was „Six-Twelve-Six‟. At one

level I wanted to play with the idea of a book of hours, and so I

had in mind the canonical hours of Matins, Lauds, Terce, Sext,

None, Vespers and Compline. My version concerns what might

be called stations of the night, beginning with 6pm as a kind of

evensong moment which launches the whole trajectory of the

piece. The times are worked through in three-hourly equal

segments – 6pm, 9pm, Midnight, 3am and 6am. In each one an

anonymous narrator experiences a dreamt encounter with a

creature and hears it speak. The idea of the dream vision came

from my reading of mediaeval poems such as Piers Ploughman,

and my Everyman narrator also owes something to similar texts.

The main narrative voice is broken and interrupted with italic

sections which take the form of dramatic monologues from a

non-human perspective – giving me the chance to present

critical aspects of relationships with our fellow animals in a voice

other than my own. Putting on a mask in this way is a kind of

liberation. It also enlivens the poem with another layer of voice.

In the words of the creatures we see most clearly aspects of

bewilderment, sorrow, regret, distaste and contempt which I

wanted to present on their behalf. Originally I had thought to

include a variety of all the animal kingdoms: reptiles, birds,

invertebrates, fish and amphibians, but in the end, although the

slowworm represents reptiles and the corncrake birds, the

remaining three creatures are all mammals.

The second level of writing runs counter to the first and

uses the plant kingdom as its basis. I wanted to consider living

things which exist independently of humans, and are therefore

not threatened by us in the way that so many other creatures

are. In the end I wrote poems voiced for weeds, as I have always

admired their success and dominance. These weed poems were

meant as celebratory, and the tone has a slight swagger to it, as

the plants glory in their ancient lineage (compared with them we

have only just arrived) and practically unlimited future. In the last

stanza of each poem they address us directly, mocking our

arrogance, confident in their superiority and ability to outlast us. It

was perhaps the mischievous, almost roughish manner of their

playful tone which led me to present them as a modern

equivalent of Anglo-Saxon riddles – and this gave rise to their

impish titles. I knew too that these poems needed to be

allocated to the children‟s choir in the piece, and so I wanted to

give them something naughty to sing, removed from the more

adult and darker sections of the sequence.

The final level in the piece is perhaps the darkest: four

bitter songs which focus on human exploitation, wilful destruction

and cynical defilement of the planet for quick profit regardless of

consequences. There is a more directly political aspect to these

poems, and I employ the second person and a more general,

inclusive perspective. In these bitter songs the tree of England

has been cut down and sold, a second Deluge has drowned the

United Kingdom and Ireland, a forest is slashed and burnt, and

though one piece acts as a kind of confession, there is no

possibility of forgiveness. We are „sorry too late, as always.‟ Sadly,

one of these pieces seemed uncomfortably prescient, as soon

after it was completed the Japanese tsunami of March 2011

occurred.

Looking at it now as a whole, at the end of the creative

process, I realise I have written a piece which is not so much

concerned with the anger of the planet as our custody of its

wonders.

ANGRY PLANET – the illustrations

In responding to Charles‟ text for Angry Planet, it was

important to me not just to refer to the direct imagery itself

but crucial to capture something of the theme and of the

mood of the concept.

This led to my first decision: to use the traditional medium of

wood engraving. This seemed appropriate on several

levels: engraved images are made powerful and graphic

by the means of their execution and lend themselves

strongly to monochrome illustrations which sit happily with

text. Secondly the process of engraving itself seemed

particularly fitting as the marks are made by cutting into

wood – symbolic of the destruction of so many of the

planet‟s trees. Thirdly to produce an engraving one must

slow oneself down to the constraints and demands of the

„cutting‟. Each mark made is absolute and cannot be

altered. The process itself becomes one almost of

meditation; perhaps the state of mind we need to not only

appreciate the consequences of the changes we are

making to the planet but to give ourselves a quiet resolve

to act.

In following the text I tried to follow the events with Charles

through the night, with its nightmares and imaginings to

day break and hope. The final image „Equinox‟ leads us

back to the beginning and to the idea of a new Spring.

A fresh start if only we choose to make it.

Sample page from the Hawthorn Press book

The Flood

Remember those islands

those islands the waves washed over?

Where were they exactly,

who lived there

and what were they like?

It‟s water under the bridge.

It‟s water over our heads.

It‟s a land that‟s drowned forever.

If only we had a raven,

we could send him out

until he came back with an oak leaf.

If only we had a dove.

WHAT NEXT...

All the artists, performers and organisations in this project

have both a history and a future working with other groups

and with other disciplines.

Charles Bennett and Bob Chilcott are presently engaged

together on Five Days that Changed the World which will

receive its world premiere at Worcester Cathedral on July

26th 2013.

Further details can be found at www.sing.org/wifys

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks go to the Hawthorn Press for the use of text and

images from Angry Planet.

Thanks also to the Bach Choir for photographs from their

publicity material.

Copyright photos: The Bach Choir.

This booklet has been commissioned and funded by The

University of Northampton.

Designed by Diane Griffiths 2013